Curiosity Killed the Cat
by candibul
Summary: You fucking hate closing up the coffee shop, especially when you have so many better things to be doing than taking a shift for someone just cause she has blackmail against you. However, staying late that night made you find something you wouldn't have otherwise. (Cat!Gavin/Michael)


You fucking hate closing up the coffee shop. It's almost 10 on a Saturday night, are there are some much better things you could be doing than spending your time at a small, lonely coffee shop that hardly gets any customers this late, jesus christ. You relax on the stool behind the counter. You've already been here for about three hours, and it's been especially slow tonight, especially when the last employee had left around 7. You lay your head down tiredly on the counter in front of you.

Honestly, it wasn't even your shift tonight. It was Lindsay's, but apparently she had a date to go to at the movies with some pimp, and also just so happened to have black mail to use against you. You never should have gone to the Christmas party last year.

But, on the inside, you were kind of glad that she didn't have the night shift. Although you didn't like it either, some real weirdos came in at this hour and you'd hate yourself if you let anything happen to her or one of the other employees that may have taken this shift.

You're stuck still here for another half hour.

Suddenly, you hear the bell on the door chime as the door opens. A large man in a big winter coat and a grumpy expression strolls in and stumbles up to the counter.

"What can I get you?" you ask him slowly.

He makes a barley audible groan, and glances at the menu before barking, "Black coffee. Any kind, I don't give a shit."

He glares back at you, and you slowly turn around to start making the coffee. You almost ask him what size, but decide against it. He'll just get more pissed off than he already is. You lethargically fill up the largest cup you have with the coffee and try not to think about all the things that could go wrong by turning your back on the man.

When the cups about half way full, you glance back to tell the man the drink is two dollars and forty five cents. He makes another unintelligible grunt and shoves his hand into his pocket. You snap the lid on the coffee, and bring it back over to the counter. Resuming your seat on the stool, you slide the drink across the counter and in front of the man. There's three crumpled bills thrown on the counter, and you put them in the register before counting out his exact change.

"Thanks," you mumble, watching as the man grunts and shuffles out the door way. Like you said, weirdos.

You check the time again. That exchange took about fifteen minutes, which isn't that surprising, considering both you and the man were moving slowly.

With only fifteen minutes left, you start to turn off the lights in the back and clean up. You're just about to leave and lock the door when you hear voices outside.

"Where did that little shit go?"

"I don' know, I think he ran straight. He's stupid, most likely just kept goin'. C'mon, he's probably just ahead of us."

Two men dashed by the glass door, dressed in all black and carrying a hefty burlap sack. Oh God wow that wasn't suspicious at all what was happening.

Honestly, you wanted no part of whatever it was. You grabbed you coat and hurried for the door, pushing it open and bracing yourself against the cold winter air. You locked it, put the key in your pocket, and headed around the block to your car in the opposite way the other two men were headed. You turned a corner and passed one of several dingy old alleyways near the coffee shop. Subconsciously, you walked just a little faster past the nook than normal.

That is, until you saw something twitch in the shadows.

Most smart fucks would have just kept on going and, ya know, _not _stopped to see what the hell was lurking in a gross old alleyway at 10:30 at night, but hey, you aren't known for making smart choices. You stop and look down the alley, seeing a dumpster and a few stereotypical trash cans, both upright and fallen over. Trash was strewn everywhere. You think something dripped from overhead. Ew.

You saw the movement over near the entrance to the alleyway, in between two of the trash cans. You cautiously creep over to them and peer down.

What the fuck.

There's a guy there, back pressed against the brick wall, eyes closed, and quitely panting. You can't see his face in the light, but he's wearing a beanie, sweatshirt, torn-to-sheds jeans, and very battered red converse. You make a surprised little hum, and his eyes snap open.

He starts struggling to sit up, using the still standing trash cans as leverage. When one can starts to tip over, you catch him. He pretty much collapses on you, and wow he is not heavy at all. Even hunched over like this, he's just as tall as you, so standing straight he's probably a good few inches taller.

As weird as it may be, you know you aren't going to be able to sleep if you left him out here. He might have had something to do with those sketchy guys that ran by earlier, and they didn't look like good news. Making another bad choice, you decide to take him home with you. You'd probably wonder about it for the rest of your life if you didn't.

Wow, you really are a saint.

You carefully scoop the guy up bridal style, and he makes a low sqealing noise. Huh. As you bring him out of the alley and back onto the side walk, you can make out some of his face from the dimly lit lights on the street. He'd obviously been in a fight, as his face was littered with black-yellow bruises and he was sporting a pretty nasty black eye. On his neck and just under the top of his hoodie, you could see more bruises and scratches. No more of his skin is visible, but you bet he has even more under his ratty clothes.

You finally make it to your car, and you unlock it and lay the guy out on the back seat. Yeah, he's definitely taller than you, but also thinner. He wasn't very heavy when you were carrying, and was probably like 100 pounds soaking wet.

Now that he's laid out in your shit car, you can see more of his features than before. The bruising is still bad, but now you can see the rest of his face. He has dark blonde hair that sticks up out of the front of the beanie he's wearing. He's got a slightly larger than average nose, and some dark stubble around his chin. Honestly, he's pretty attractive.

Oh God what have you gotten yourself into.

You close the back doors of your car and walk around to the front to climb into the driver's seat. You don't turn any music on like you normally would in consideration for the man laying behind you. The ride home was quiet, almost silent except for the occasional hitched breath or soft noise uttered from the other passenger.

After about 10 minutes, you pulled up outside your apartment building and realized you didn't think this through because you really don't have a way to sneak this kid past Lindsay, the receptionist, who worked late that night. So how the fuck were you supposed to get the guy inside?

_The fucking fire escape. _

You took a moment to compose yourself, then opened your door and got out to pull the kid out of your back seat. You leant in, picked him up bridal style before swinging the body out of the vehicle. He wasn't as heavy as he probably should have been, but either way, he was basically just dead weight, which was always hard to carry. You closed the door with your foot before switching the man onto your back. It would be easier to carry him like this.

Moving as fast as you could with a passenger on your back, you sprint-shuffled to the back of the building. Reaching the rusty stairs, you started ascending. After about three levels, you stopped, adjusted the kid (who didn't even fucking twitch jesus), and kept going. After a few more flights, you reached the window outside your own apartment. Sitting the guy down momentarily, you pried open your window all the way before picking the guy up and sliding him as gently as you could through the window and onto the floor. He sort of crumpled in a heap on your floor. Fuck.


End file.
